what ducks can teach us about human sex

[MikeWhalen]

I bit of an unusual topic for me, but I found parts of this interview fascinating, particularly how birds do seem to have an aesthetic sense, anti rape fake vagina's, and especially, how humans got rid of the 'infanticide' issue and that apparently, nice guys finish first

"What Duck Sex Reveals about Human Nature
In an interview, Richard Prum, an ornithologist and curator at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, discusses the violent mechanics of duck sex, the beauty of bird-mating rituals and why human civilization was made possible by love."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/ornithologist-richard-prum-on-duck-sex-and-human-evolution-a-1151217.html

Mike

[Sebbo]

Thank you for an informative post!

[Saetro]

sorry, but I can't wait for his promotion to professor.
Professor Prum!

Ah, the cartoons of youth. :)

Seriously though, I have a strong interest in how we have dealt over history with infants and children who have lost one or other parent.
Not killing them seems to have been an important first step. Despite very rare news reports to the contrary.
(I am finding more and more reports of undocumented adoptions in C19/20.
Most of these were just a re-marriage following spousal death.
Some seem to have been children who were brought up in a different strand of the same family as if they were part of it.)

Some animals do adoption too, but it is probably rare.
And probably not in ducks, where identifying their own young among a crowd seems to be important.